


When Life Gives You Lemons

by Rhinozilla



Series: Detroit 07 [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Adorable Connor, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Gen, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Humor, Light-Hearted, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Swearing, because hank and tina, co-worker banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinozilla/pseuds/Rhinozilla
Summary: Hank wouldn't say he helped Tina trick Connor into licking a lemon slice, but he couldn't say he really tried to stop her either.





	When Life Gives You Lemons

**Author's Note:**

> Just like last time, it was in my brain, and I had to get it out. I also just wanted to write something light and fun, and I'm not done playing in the DBH sandbox.

So somebody thought they’d be fancy and put fresh lemons in the break room. Which was ridiculous. Hank knew for a fact that if you stabbed any one of the officers in the building, they would bleed either coffee or energy drink, not exactly beverages to be accented with lemon or whatever the fuck.

The things smelled like cleaning materials as far as he was concerned. The smell only spread like a mushroom cloud when Tina caved and cut into one.

“Really?”

“What?” Tina said seriously, dropping a slice of lemon into her ice water. “I can be fancy.”

She proceeded to take a long, slurping drink of her water, not breaking eye contact with Hank as she did so. She finished with a loud swallow and an even louder smacking of her lips.

“Refreshing.”

Hank made a face. “You done?”

Tina’s gaze drifted past him, looking over his shoulder. Mischief lit her eyes.

“No, I’m not actually…Connor! Hey, c’mere.” She gave a little wave.

Hank folded his arms and glanced back as his partner walked into the break area. Hank looked back at Tina, at the remains of the sliced lemon, back at Tina, and smirked.

“Yes, Officer Chen?” Connor asked, drawing up beside Hank as usual.

Tina cocked her head. “I read somewhere that the longer an android is deviant, the more heightened their senses get, like smell and taste and shit. That true?”

Connor gently tilted his head, almost mimicking Tina’s position, as he thought about it. “I wouldn’t refer to it as ‘heightened,’ but the process of registering external stimuli can become…more intense, if the android has elected to disable the programs that muted those sensations. I would compare it more to...removing the training wheels from a bicycle.”

“Hm, yes, interesting, interesting. And have you…elected?” Tina asked.

Connor’s eyebrows narrowed slightly. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

Hank mulled on that, leaning away slightly and looking Connor in the eye. “Does that include the sense of taste?”

Connor looked at him, only moving his eyes and nothing else. “Yes.”

Tina subtly picked up one of the lemon slices. “So you could taste—“

“Wait—“ Hank’s intruding thought interrupted Tina’s plan. “So when we’re out at crime scenes, and you’re doing your—“ he gestured vaguely, “—analysis thing…You’re actually TASTING that evidence?”

“I—“

“Shit, Connor, in the last two cases alone you’ve sampled blood, gunpowder residue, a cigarette butt, and the bottom of some dead guy’s shoe. That is fucking disgusting!”

Tina looked offended at Hank sidetracking her lemon plan, but at that, she swiveled back to face Connor, disgust winning over offense.

“Seriously? That’s fucked up, dude.”

Connor made an exasperated noise. “Obviously I turn that sense off when analyzing evidence.”

“What about other stimuli? Are you ticklish now?” Tina changed tact like lightning.

Connor’s entire body language tightened up, and Hank swore that he took a half step away from the two humans. “…No.”

Androids couldn’t lie for shit.

Hank was just gonna store that little confession in the back of his mind for now, deciding to steer them back to the matter at hand.

“You ever tasted a lemon before, Connor?”

Suspicion gave way to Connor’s curious nature, and he loosened up a bit, looking inquisitively at the yellow slice between Tina’s fingers.

“No, I haven’t.”

“So you didn’t put these here?” Tina gestured to the small bowl of lemons.

“Androids do not eat. Why would I even—“

Tina rolled her eyes and lifted her fingers into air quotes. “You guys tend to get off on things like “make the humans eat better” and “have good posture” and “sleep more than three hours every night” and other hippie stuff like that.”

At the three hours comment, Hank looked sideways at her. “Are you okay?”

Tina waved him off, pointing the lemon at Connor. “That’s beside the point. The point is…Here’s the point…Lick the lemon.”

Connor blinked in genuine confusion, and Hank chuckled. Connor looked at him, as if to validate that he’d heard the question correctly.

“Why?”

“To add to your mouth lexicon,” Tina answered swiftly. “You’re always saying you want to explore more stuff now that you’re deviant. So…try it.”

Connor’s face did a fun little slideshow of confusion, curiosity, suspicion, and curiosity again, before he set his jaw and reached out. “Fine, okay.”

Tina deposited the lemon into his hand with a flick of her fingers, taking another intentionally loud slurping sip from her water. Hank grimaced.

“Jesus, Tina, why?”

Tina gave a half hearted shrug and offered Connor a thumbs up.

Hank almost laughed at the somber, serious expression on Connor’s face as he visually analyzed the lemon slice.

“People give them to babies sometimes,” Hank offered, trying to set his partner’s mind at ease. “It’s harmless.”

“Harm is not what concerns me,” Connor said, holding the slice closer. “I have become very accustomed to this department’s particular brand of hazing new officers.”

“Oh for crying out—“ Tina dug the lemon slice out of her own ice water and straight bit into it in front of them both. “See? It’s just a fucking lemon. Lick it.”

Hank stared at Tina in horror as she chewed the sour lemon and swallowed without so much as a wince. He was just as quickly distracted as, emboldened by Tina’s gesture, Connor abruptly licked the lemon from one end of the slice to the other, so hard that some of the juice squirted out over his fingers.

“There,” he said, as though he’d won some big argument. “Are you hap—“

He suddenly gagged, one eye twitching halfway shut as his LED spun to yellow, red, and back to yellow. His tongue stuck halfway out, and his jaw went slack and to the left. Both shoulders cringed up to his ears, and some bizarre noise between radio static and a cat sneezing came out of him.

Tina howled, setting her drink aside and clapping her hands with glee. Hank smothered his mouth with a hand to hide his own laughter, but holy shit, he’d never seen Connor make that face before. He was pretty sure faces, android or human, weren’t supposed to twist like that.

“Ack—gah—wha tha—feck!” Connor sputtered, keeping his tongue out but slowly reacquainting his soul with his body. “Ha..nk?”

Hank nodded, lifting a hand placatingly. “Yeah, that’s normal.”

Connor stared at him for a moment, then turned betrayed eyes to Tina. “Why?”

Tina was lost in her giggles, wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh my god, that was better than I even hoped!”

Hank lifted a shoulder. “It was a little dramatic.”

Connor glared at Hank, Tina saw it, and she lost it all over again.

“That’s why people give lemon slices to babies sometimes,” Hank explained. “It’s funny.”

“Nah funneh!” Connor gave a hard shake of his head, exaggeratedly smacking his tongue around inside his mouth to clear out the taste. His LED finally flickered back to blue. “That was heinous.” His spine straightened, and he pointed at Tina. “You ate an entire slice, and you didn’t do that.”

“Because I am more powerful than you,” Tina said with a snap of her fingers.

Now that the surprise and sour taste was wearing off, Hank could see actual embarrassment starting to creep up through Connor’s posture, and he gave a sigh.

“All right.” He clapped a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Today we learned that lemons are sour and Tina is not to be trusted. Let’s get back to work, eh?”

Connor deftly avoided his eyes, stubbornly looking at the far wall and then briefly to Tina. “I should probably thank you, actually, Officer Chen. You helped me try something new that I wouldn’t have—“

“No, no,” Hank scolded. “No thanking Tina for pranking you.”

Tina sagely held out a hand. “I’ll allow it.”

Connor opened his mouth again, but Hank grabbed his shoulders, steering him away from the break room. He cast a look back at Tina, who grinned and bent to pick up the lemon slice that Connor had thrown to the floor in distress. Somehow that image finally cracked Hank, and he laughed as he pushed Connor back toward their work stations.


End file.
